Peter Hain: Of course we want to see neighbourhood policing rolled out right across Wales and elsewhere in the United Kingdom. Indeed, under this Labour Government we have had 1,000 more police officers and 1,300 more police community support officers in Wales, compared with the consistent cuts in police officers and police budgets under the Tory Government whom the hon. Gentleman supported.

Richard Shepherd: I am pleased to follow the previous three speakers, and I am grateful to them for elevating this debate. The teasing amendment on the Order Paper was tabled because we felt that the Government were complimenting the Joint Committee through gritted teeth, as it did not produce the result that they wanted. That is why I cheer.
	Anyway, I cheer any Joint Committee that refers to Hood Phillips and to "Constitutional and Administrative Law". It reminds us that this and the other House are ancient—the very foundations of our constitution. Even those of us who half-heartedly studied university courses on the constitution know that its fundamental purpose and statement is the sovereignty of Parliament. Of course people such as me say that that is a valid and virtuous doctrine, because in the democratic age the sovereignty of Parliament is shorthand for the sovereignty of the people.
	I am grateful to the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) for putting the Parliament Act 1911 into perspective. It was a temporary measure. At the time, it was clear to everyone that the Lords would move to a democratic basis.
	I think about the course taken by this country, of which we are the representative voice. Its history is ancient. There have always been two Chambers and they have always tussled and fought, but the balance, over a long time, came to this Chamber—the Commons—to the people of England, as opposed to a landed interest, a dynastic system, a creation of patronage and a hereditary principle. The primacy of the Lords became constitutionally indefensible. Popular feeling and the ability to reach people to make arguments and to affect Government grew. We accept no divine right of kings. This House brought to an end the concept that a person can by right of birth be a member of a legislature.
	It seems absolutely extraordinary that anyone could countenance the fact that a legislator in a democracy is not accountable to the people for whom they make laws. The people who bear the laws must be able to hold to account those who make them. That is such a fundamental point that I am startled that a Labour Government—as Mr. Kinnock would have said—could countenance even the thought of the sidelining ways in which the Prime Minister frustrated Robin Cook's genuine attempt to move towards a largely elected second Chamber. It was almost a repudiation of the genesis of the Labour party.
	The conflict between the two Houses does not chill me. It is a dynamic that reinforces the people. We all have different views about what public policy should be—there is nothing unusual about that. I lived under a Conservative Government who used to chant the mantra of the mandate. I live under this God-awful Government—if they will forgive me saying so—who also chant the mantra of the mandate. As the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Mr. Wright) said, the manifesto is a curious document. None of us reads it from cover to cover, apart from those who wrote it. The public at large are unaware of it, but it provided the justification for the Lords' acceptance that the legitimacy they lacked resided elsewhere and that in the end they should defer.
	I look forward to seeing whether the Leader of the House's White Paper is a virtuous document, but if the Lords are to have legitimacy, on whatever basis, of course it will reconfigure the relationship between here and there. In truth, I look forward to that.
	The public are disengaged because, somehow, we beat a drum to a tune that they no longer hear when it comes to the issues that they wish to challenge and the importance of Government. We have become machines of spin and manipulation. Where is the blockage? Most of these arguments have long been discussed and reasoned through. We have only to think of Montesquieu's misunderstanding of the British constitution, of those English gentlemen in the United States in revolt against the Crown, of the Federalist papers, and of the long debate over the very issues that trouble us now. Those arguments are there, and yet here we are talking, and the Government insist—the mantra is still heard—that they must get their business. That has never been a constitutional principle. It is an argument of Government, of course. The Government may get their business if they are supported by Parliament. That is the function of Parliament.